Ecotourism Business Development (EBD) Certificate Programme successfully completed with the Awarding of Certificate
to 16 (sixteen) participants on 2nd November, 2012 at the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel
Management (SLITHM), Colombo, Sri Lanka

Addressing the participants who have successfully completed the Certificate progrmme on Ecotourism Business Development
EBD) and the distinguished gathering at the EBD Award Ceremony held at the Sri Lanka Institute of
Tourism and Hotel Management (SLITHM), Colombo, Sri Lanka on 2nd November, 2012, Mr. HMS Samaranayake,
former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board, and the Chief Guest for the Award Ceremony said
'Sri Lanka Tourism should create a special division to promote Ecotourism in Sri Lanka as it is
the best alternative to alleviate poverty through tourism in Sri Lanka and to attract up market,
environment friendly wealthy tourists to Sri Lanka.'

Sri Lanka Ecotourism Foundation is the pioneer national ecotourism society of Sri Lanka that was
established in 1998. From its inception, SLEF was focusing on sustainable tourism, environmental and biodiversity
conservation in Sri Lanka, with a view to mitigate the impacts of climate change, strain on the environment and
environmental degradation and increase of the energy efficiency and clean technologies.
From 2010 onwards, SLEF was strongly promoting of sustainable and renewable energy sources in
Sri Lanka, especially for the small and medium tourism sector (SMEs) SLEF was the first to
promote and popularize solar powered lighting systems among the small and medium scale tourism entrepreneurs in
Sri Lanka. Moving another step forward SLEF decided to promote solar energy systems and related equipments to
those who are interested in acquiring them at an affordable price.